The New Face of Failure
by Lena Verere
Summary: When James Potter's, the son of Harry, girlfriend leaves with Gus Goodwill for a summer, she comes back different. HPNG PRE-Hallows


A/N: Apparently, Harry Potter does not belong to me. Mason and Adrienne Weasley, James, Contessa, Regus, and Gerald Potter, Millicent Dean, and Gus Goodwill DO belong to me.

"You'll do just fine," he keeps reminding her the same thing over and over. He's been saying "Just fine" for the past three days.

"But what if I don't** want** to do go?" the girl asks, pushing the older man, who looks old enough to be her father, away. "What if I don't want to do just fine?"

"Nonsense. I did perfectly well when I was finally sent off. You'll pucker up, grow a pair, and go get you some education!" The man is in his own little world for a moment, staring off into nothing as he fondly remembers his own days at school.

"When you went, Goodwill, you trained with the Founders of Hogwarts." The girl spoke with a fresh American accent that was almost as if she were a demon trapped inside another's body. A part of her speech was pure British accent, but the other was a refreshing New York. "I'm Millicent Dean, not Gus Goodwill. I'm _not_ known for writing the entire Care of Magical Creatures textbook. I'm not three hundred years old. I'm _just me_." The girl threw her hands up in the air and stepping farther from her huge cart. An owl, not hers exactly, but close enough, is sitting in a cage, squawking to be let out. He ruffles his black feathers and attempts to pick at the lock, failing miserably.

Goodwill put his hands together and tilted his head down to look at Mil.

"And that matters because?" Mil could just hear the dry humor in his voice and see that she could never win this argument. Fifteen year old Millicent Dean was going to have to suck it up and go anyways.

"Because I'm dead for Christ's sake! I'm not supposed to go off to _school_! I'm supposed to be Six Feet Under, hopefully buried by a family-owned cemetery and morgue that's partly run by the very smexy Micheal C. Hall! By the way, I loved that show and it didn't matter that he played a homosexual because he's one of the hottest men alive _ever_. And, if I have an option, I need to be back in Baltimore or New York. Either way, I'd be fine. I don't want to go to fucking London and I sure as Hell don't want to go to school!"

Goodwill sighed again, rolling his eyes at the nativity of some. "It's wizarding school, there's a difference."

"I don't care if I'll learn how to make water into wine!" Millie exclaimed.

"That's Jesus."

"I'm dead, I'm surprised I'm not _seeing _Jesus!" Millie said, looking out at the people that didn't really see her.

"First off, you aren't dead. You are merely occupying a body that did not previously belong to you. Millicent Dean's body is perfectly suited for a soul of your caliber. . ."

"So now I have a caliber? I'm not a rifle! Or any gun for that matter!" Millie growled, wanting to strangle gus right there.

"You are not a gun, yes. But you are not dead either," Gus corrected her.

"I was hit by a car! My brains flew across the sidewalk! How is that not death?" Millicent asked, waving her arms and attracting attention. Gus cast a quick concealment charm and glared at her.

"You aren't any more dead than I am. We are both recipients of a very interesting ability. The first person that saw you die was Millicent Dean. You went into her and now you are a very lucky girl. The first time I was re-born, I was inside a homeless guy for three years until another homeless guy saw me. This chain of events went on until Flickwick, a professoer at Hogwarts, saw the me die. Playing as Flickwick was fun . . . " Gus seemed to go out for a few seconds before Mil snapped her fingers in his face.

"Hey, testing dead guy, one, two, four. . "

"It's one, two, three," Gus reminded her.

"Well, don't expect me to know how to count! My brains got bashed out by the road!" Millie exclaimed.

"Correction, Jamie Tyler's brains were bashed out on a road. Millicent Dean's, however, are perfectly intact. You aren't Jamie Tyler, dearie." He had cast a disillusionment charm around them already, making sure that no one who heard them realised that it wasn't a mirage.

Millicent pulled a strand of hair out of her head.

"Yes, I am. I am Jamie Tyler, not Millicent. Jamie, not Millie." Millie/Jamie began to pace and the owl responded by beginning to chew on the metal bars of the cage, chomping down with his beak. "I'm going back to America. I'm going home."

"Listen, I'm not taking you to America any more than I am crawling into a grave. You are going to get on that train and you are going to go to the dumb-ass school and you are going to keep secrets secret. You are going to stay Millicent Dean. You are going to go out with James Potter and, if circumstances require it, you will be an all-honors student. Is that clear?" Gus wasn't really in the mood for shit from Mil today. He had taken her under his wing in the three months since the accident that had claimed Millicent Dean's mortal body. He had even tried to train her how to understand everything. Unfortunately, she hadn't seemed to respond to his practical sensibilities. She had spit in his face instead of going along like a good little supposidly Dead Girl should. So he was sending her away to some very good friends of his, namely a sage named Sybil Trelawney. They had dated back when she was in her 'wild years' and she still owed him a favor. Sybil agreed to take the young girl in and try and train her in something she had no idea about and Millicent would live in the school that Trelawney worked at as a student. Millicent had gotten powers three months ago, both magical and paranormal, so it really wasn't that bad of an idea.

The new person that Jamie Tyler had come to become was named Millicent Dean. Millicent lived in a nice four-story apartment in downtown London. She had a good college fund tucked in for when she would go to med school. Both of her parents were muggles and thus thought that you bought brooms at the Home Depot and that it was necessary to let an old family friend, Gus Goodwill, take you to Wizarding London all summer. Gus hadn't done much to prep Millie for a new year at Hogwarts. She still had last year's robes and her wand was apparently something that she had found at the side of the road.

But Millicent, throughout her hatred of the slightly ragged black robe she was wearing, was still relatively smart. So instead of spitting in his face a second time, she inched closer to the cart and grabbed the handle. She prepped herself for the worst and began to speak.

"Crystal," she said, forcing a smile. "Crystal fucking clear. But I don't want to get one fucking letter from you for three fucking years. If I'm going to Hogwarts, I'm going to damned well do it without you ruining my life _again_." She glared at him and pushed the cart right into the wall. She hit it with a splat and fell backwards. She heard footsteps pass by and, eventually, Gus was standing right over her.  
"Smart move, Dorothy. Are you going to try to go to Oz without your ruby slippers again?" he said with a smirk.

"What do you mean?" Mil asked from the ground, regaining her confidence that was lost. She picked herself off the floor and dusted herself off.

"I mean that you tried to go through the wrong wall." Gus grabbed her and tilted her to a column. "That's the right one."

Millicent tried to hide her embarrassment as she turned the cart and barreled right through the collumn.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"There's just no way to explain it, it's there and there will be no denying it."

"I['m just saying that, perhaps, there's a better way of thinking. . "

"Well, you are severely mistaken, both of you."

James Potter and his two companions, Adrienne and Mason Weasley, were discussing politics in the train car.

"Of course, she's bloody mistaken," Mason, the oldest of the three at seventeen, snarled. "But I'm not. I know damned well that if not for Cornelius Fudge, the world would be over by now."

James closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. Sometimes his stubborn cousin made James want to explode from the inside out.

"'ey!" Adrienne, eleven and not yet old enough to truely know what she was talking about, said. "I know things just 's well 's you and James 'ere do!" Adrienne had lived on a ship for five years and now had an almost unbearable accent that was unrecognizable. She had wild red hair and bulging eyes that could only be described as bulging. "Mum taught me 'use as she tau'ght you."

"I doubt she taught you at all," James muttered under his breath.

"What 'as that, Cousin?" Young and firey Adrienne asked. "I didn't 'ear you?"

"It was nothing, Adrienne," Mason told her, patting her back roughly. They were all cousins. James being Harry and Ginerva Potter's third son; Mason being Fluer and Bill's son; and Adrienne sharing genes with Hermionie and Ron Weasley.

"Exactly," James agreed. He looked about as similar to his cousins as a peacock does to a chicken. He didn't have anything close to his cousin, Mason's sullen look, bright blond hair, and deeply set eyes. Nor did he have Adrienne's stringy hair. James had no far-off stare that looked like the one his mother had when James' father was away on business. James only had pitch black hair, dark eyes, and the cheekbones of a father he hardly knew except from news articles, pictures, and stories. Ginerva had tried her hardest to make her son know his father but Harry being out on business and on whore-screwing sort-of fucked that plan up. So she bit her lip when he came in drunk while she was washing dishes or stayed out too late and came home three weeks later with half a finger missing and a mohawk. James had spent the past sixteen years of his life trying to ignore the irony. Draco Malfoy was a philantrophist who donated to charity and was like the Mr. Scrooge of the Wizarding World (after the Christmas Carol) and now, everytime James's family was brought up, the saying: "How far the mighty fall" came up every time.

"James," Mason tugged at James's shirt sleeve, pointing at the door with the other hand. "Think your girlfriend is here."

James looked at the door and, sure enough, Millicent Dean was walking past the open car door.

"Hey!" James called, jumping up. "Millie!"

Millicent didn't stop for some odd reason. Millie just kept walking.

"Millicent!" James ran after her, past a pair of bright haired metamorphagi that cursed at him through clenched teeth.

"Watch it, Potter!" the younger female cried, slapping at him with a delicate hand as he ran past her.

"Sorry, Iris!" he yelled in responce. People began to come out of their rooms to see what the Hell was going on. When James finally caught up to Millicent, he grabbed her arm.

"Sweetheart," he began, but was met with a punch in the face.

"Don't touch me!" Millie said, reeling back her hand for another punch, but she froze when she saw his face. The face pinged a memory in the real Millicent's memory. It was James Lee Potter, Millicent's boyfriend.

"Oh," she jumped back a little and blushed. James wasn't exactly attractive, but wasn't ugly either. He had deep green eyes, bronze (which, despite popular belief, is black mixed with orangish red, NOT goldish brown) hair and a tan complextion.

Millicent was more attractive, though, with her own green eyes, long auburn hair, and golden skin. Jamie/Millie had a feeling that Millicent had been tanning lately even before Jamie took over her mind and body.

"Sorry, James," Millicent apologized, shrugging her shoulders. She held up her new black owl up and he smiled.

"What's his name?" James asked as he began to pull her to their car.

"I think," Millie said, automatically liking James for some strange reason.

"Think what?" James asked as they walked past a few sneers from open doors.

"Think I'll name him Dexter or Michael. Or David," Millicent said, thinking of Six Feet Under.

"I like David or Michael. ." James commented.

"I like Michael."

"Michael the owl it is!" James said, smiling.

"Let's just go." Millie shivered, it was a bit chilly in the open air.

"That sounds good," James agreed as he openned the door for her.

"Gentlemen, Sailors, I present the lovely lady of the day! Millicent Cynthia Dean!" James said with a slightly dramatic flair. Millie just waved him off, silently thanking him for helping her remember her middle name.

"Aye, Mill, nice to see ya. How was your summer?" Adrienne asked, blushing from being called a sailor. Adrienne, more then anything else in the entire world, loved to be recognized for her sailing past.

Millicent was doing her own fair share of blushing. Mason was looking right at her and it was unnerving. He was gorgeous, more beautiful than Leonardo DiCaprio and, perhaps, even Michael C. Hall. His hair was as white as a dove's feathers and his eyes. . Well, she couldn't even tell what color they were. They were set so deep that the shadows from the light covered them. Millicent's memory made her remember her light crush-even now-on Mason. She also remembered that he may be a pot smoker. . . . But it may've been a flaw in the real Mil's memory.

Adrienne was less of a beauty. With her stringy hair, bulging green eyes, and bad breath, she looked and smelt more insane than anything else.

James was just . . . James as specified earlier. Nothing really special about him and Millie had expected a lot more from a Potter (or so Mil's memory told her).

"Nice bird," Mason commented, pointed at Michael.

"Yeah, he is, isn't he?" Millie held up the bird and stuck a finger in.

"Good birdie!" she murmered to the bird. In responce, Michael bite her.

"Damn bird! Should've named you fucking Dexter instead, you deserve it you little bastard!" Millie swore. She paused. Everyone in the car was looking at her with a look of worry on their faces. . . Well, she could've sworn Mason had a look. But it's hard to tell when you can't see the eyes.

"Aye, is that Mil or another lass?" Adrienne asked. James had the same question, only in English.

"Are you okay?"


End file.
